Excerpts:
Class argues that the Capitol Grounds, which include almost 300 acres of the District, are not a small pocket of the outside world, and claims that the ban on possession makes it “practically impossible to travel to other areas around the Capitol with a firearm for self-defense.” Suppl. Class Reply 8. We see no such problem. While this portion of Maryland Avenue could be used to travel from one part of the District to another, nothing about the ban prevents a person who wishes to carry a firearm for self-defense from taking an alternate route that avoids the Capitol Grounds.
Class next argues that he lacked notice his conduct was criminal because of how difficult it is to determine the boundaries of the Capitol Grounds. Couching his challenge in terms of vagueness, Class suggests that absent such notice, his conviction violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We disagree.
The metes and bounds of the Capitol Grounds are precisely defined: with a map of the city and the appropriate legal references, it can be determined with certainty that the 200 block of Maryland Avenue SW is subject to the ban.
Confronted with a clear statute, Class takes a different approach. He argues that, regardless of the precision of the text, the structure of the statute and lack of signage identifying the Maryland Avenue lot as a restricted area makes it “exceedingly difficult” for an ordinary citizen to actually figure out that the parking lot is part of the Capitol Grounds. Suppl. Class Br. 33. So difficult, according to Class, that an armed person in the lot lacks fair notice that his conduct is prohibited. In support of his position, Class relies on the circuitous route an individual must take to determine whether the lot is part of the Capitol Grounds. First, a person must look to the U.S. Code, which defines the grounds by reference to a 1946 map on file in the Office of the Surveyor of the District of Columbia. 40 U.S.C. § 5102. The map does not contain the Maryland Avenue lot. However, the statute goes on to say that the boundaries of the Grounds “includ[e] all additions added by law” after the map was recorded. Id. So the second step a person must take is to find Public Law 96-432, which in 1980 expanded the Grounds to include “that portion of Maryland Avenue Southwest from the west curb of First Street Southwest to the east curb of Third Street Southwest.” Act to Amend the Act of July 31, 1946, as amended, Relating to the United States Capitol Grounds, and for Other Purposes, Pub. L. No. 96-432, (5), 94 Stat. 1851, 1851 (1980). The Maryland Avenue lot falls squarely within this area, but Class argues that the combination of these steps and lack of other identifying features puts determining the boundaries of the Capitol Grounds “beyond the ken of someone of ordinary intelligence and diligence.” Suppl. Class Br. 34.
We disagree. It is a bedrock principle that “[c]itizens are charged with generally knowing the law.”
A citizen concerned about violating the ban need not make detailed measurements, sort through voluminous real estate records, or speculate about the uses of various parcels of land. He must simply, as is the case with any criminal law, open the statute book—even if here he may need two.